Launch of Cambodia’s first Rattan Field Guide draws attention from national and international press

Here in this rattan factory 'Kuy Meng' 30 people are employed. An average volume of monthly sales of 210 units is being supplied to markets in Preah Sihanouk, Kampot and Siam Reap provinces, as well as in the Phnom Penh capital.

31 March 2010
WWF

In the evening of Wednesday, 17th March, Cambodia’s most watched television channels Television of Kampuchea (TVK) and South-east Asia TV featured the launch of the first Field Guide to the Rattans of Cambodia in their primetime news programmes, while both radio and print press reported on the event the next day. The launch itself, organised on 17th March, was attended by more than 130 stakeholders from the Cambodian rattan sector including rattan collectors, processors, traders, small and medium entrepreneurs, Cambodian Government’s Forestry Administration, the General Department of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection as well as WWF’s Rattan project and communications personnel. The event drew interest from Cambodia’s top 16 Khmer and English language press, all based in the capital of Phnom Penh.

Radio Australia aired the story twice via its large coverage network across Cambodia, first as a hot news and later as a feature story in its weekly programme on agricultural development and sustainable environmental practice.

“From the point of view of newsworthiness, Rattan is a good story to cover because it's about environment, community development and sustainability and it's also about bringing income to poor families whose livelihood rely on rattan products,” said Mr Alex Khun, a Khmer journalist and broadcaster based in Melbourne Office that features programmes in both Khmer and English.

Mr Khun said that in the past, not many people know about rattan products and its value chain. With WWF’s initiative, green and sustainable rattan industry has the potential to help hundreds of people earn extra income while promoting protection of rattan resources and forest ecosystems. These factors create, as Mr Khun believes, a great deal of interest among millions of listeners both locally and overseas.

“From community and social development standpoints, it's a good thing that people begin to understand the values and start to protect rattan resources. Local communities become aware that they are able to earn income from rattan, whereas before, people knew little about the benefits of rattan as they thought only for domestic use.” He continued that in Western countries such as Australia rattan products are quite expensive and popular and that high quality rattan products will find their ways into hotels, restaurants, and homes.

According to Mr Khan Sophirom, journalist with Raksmei Kampuchea - the most read Khmer language newspaper - the story is beneficial for readers who work in the Cambodian rattan sector. "It is a brand new story," he said.

At Radio France International (RFI) all news are interesting for their listeners. This Paris-based Radio aired the rattan story in its news programme in Khmer language via its FM frequencies that cover Phnom Penh capital and provinces of Siam Reap, Battambang, Kampong Cham and Preah Sihanouk.

Mr Leang Delux, RFI’s correspondent, thought that the story was very interesting because it informed the public about the diversity of Cambodian rattan growing across the whole country.

The main focus of the launch event – the first “Field Guide of the Rattans of Cambodia” – is the result of more than two years of research on rattan in Cambodia by Mr Khou Eang Hourt, senior botanist. The guide documents more than 20 rattan species across 13 provinces all over Cambodia and identifies five species with the highest market potential. Besides common and scientific names for all species, the book supplies detailed information on rattan characteristics and ecology. Detailed distribution maps provide information on where to find each species while descriptions and colour photographs support field identification.

For future reference, copies of the book were distributed to all stakeholders present at the launch. The book contributes an important step towards sustainable rattan management as it describes the diversity, ecology and characters of rattan.

For more information, email to Tep Asnarith asnarith.tep@wwfgreatermekong.org

Thai Jail Time for Six Cambodians Riles Cambodia

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
22 February 2010

Foreign Ministry officials say they will protest the sentencing of six Cambodians to two years in jail by a Thai court on Monday.

The defendants, four men and two women, were caught collecting rattan on the wrong side of the border earlier this year.

On Friday, a court in Thailand’s Surin province found them guilty of illegal entry and illegal logging.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said Monday that neither a lawyer nor the Cambodian consul for Surin province was present at the sentencing, in what he called an “irregular” procedure.

“We must take opposition against the verdict,” he said.

The verdict comes after a Cambodian court sentenced a Thai man to 20 years in prison earlier this month, for attempting to lay landmines along the border.

Cambodia and Thailand are engaged in a protracted border standoff and an ongoing diplomatic row.

In 2009, the Thai provincial courts of Sisaket and Ubon sentenced at least 27 Cambodians from 15 months to 9 years in jail for illegal entry and logging in Thai territory.

In the same year, Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey provincial court sentenced one Thai to three months for illegal entry into Cambodia, although border guards arrested and released another 42 Thais for alleged illegal entry.

Kampot Community Turns to Rattan

By Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Original report from Pnom Penh
28 April 2009

A drive 20 kilometers south of Kampot town brings you to the scenic village of Prek Thnout, where all kinds of trees grow along the ridges of Bokor Mountain. Step inside the forest, and you could wind up amid the sharp thorns of the rattan palm.

Since mid-2008, thousands of blue-foliaged rattan plants have been planted in rows along the mountain in Prek Thnout commune, where the large trees and water important to the plant are in abundance.

“If we don’t replant it, or use it in a disorderly way, it will vanish,” Roth Rem, head of the commune’s community protection group, said of the palm, which is woven in strips to make chairs, cabinets and tables for local markets in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

For years, Kampot province has been grown the most rattan, though in recent years it has been heavily harvested for export to Vietnam. More than 20 species of rattan grow in Cambodia’s forests, including the most popular, known in Khmer as Sorm and Preah Phdao, which are solid with large trunks.

The Prek Thnout protection group, supported by the World Wildlife Fund, is the first community to begin replanting rattan, on 40 hectares across three communes: Prek Thnout, Prek Krek and Chornghorn.

The conservation group will widen rattan production to Koh Kong, Preah Vihear and Kampong Thom provinces, though younger plants can’t be harvested.

“Rattan can grow up to 100 meters long,” Roth Rem told VOA Khmer as he walked along a small footbath beaten into the forest.

In Prek Thnout, 800 families have joined the protection group, getting advice on how to plant rattan and properly harvest it. Of them, 20 families use rattan to build furniture to supplement their farming and fishing incomes.

“One chair costs 32,000 riel,” about $8, said Dom Phea, a rattan producer. “It helps us make a better living.”

Despite its popularity here, the quality and types of rattan furniture made in Kampot province remain less competitive against other countries, due to insufficient equipment and techniques.

World Wildlife Fund officials say they will look for cooperation among rattan manufacturers to provide more training to villagers, with the aim of exporting half its rattan products to markets in the US, Europe and Japan by 2015.

A Naga to save the environment

Part of the Naga above the Siem Reap river (Photo: The Rubbish Project)
Volunteers helping to build the Naga (Photo: The Rubbish Project)
Volunteers helping to build the Naga (Photo: The Rubbish Project)
Volunteers at work (Photo: The Rubbish Project)

20 March 2008
By Marie Giffard
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr

On Saturday 22 March, a Naga made out of rubbish will rise from the water in Siem Reap to celebrate the World Water Day and to denounce pollution in Cambodia.

For the occasion of the World Water Day, on 22 March 2008, The Rubbish Project, in partnership with the environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF), will build a 200-meter long snake made out of locally produced rattan, collected plastic material and other materials collected from garbage cans. The concept was centered around a Naga, a mythical water snake, in order to sensitize the population on the state of water streams and rivers in the kingdom. “The Naga plays a central role in the Cambodian culture, it is also present in religion as well, when the Naga saved Buddha by lifting him up from the flooding water while he was meditating,” Seckon, one of the organizers, explained.

The Naga should rise from the Siem Reap river, next the Angkor temples. The Rubbish Project was set up in 2006 by artists Fleur Smith and Leang Seckon, to attract the public attention, through arts, on environmental issues.

“We hope that people, when they see this, understand that this snake was made out of rubbish and water pollution, and that, if this persists, the Naga and all that can be found in the river will disappear,” the artist insists. “WWF also hopes to show the efficiency of rattan as a flexible construction material,” Dr. Koy Ra, the director of Rattan Project at the WWF Cambodia, declared.

Additional information can be found at:
http://www.therubbishproject.blogspot.com